Shine

Great read

Great weekend read, great plot, great characters. Finished it in a few hours time

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Highly recommended

I have followed Myracle's career since the beginning to try to understand what my daughters and older grandchildren were so excited about, so I picked up Shine thinking I knew what was coming. I didn't. This book isn't Winnie or Zoe or Mad Maddie. Nor is it Vicks or Jessie. Myracle's readers will know to whom I refer. Those of you who aren't can read Shine without being misdirected by prior knowledge of Myracle's sunny prose and "all's well that ends well" philosophy.

Shine is gritty--sometimes raw and always intense. It drags prejudices and human frailty into the spotlight for close examination, dealing with subjects that aren't sunny, such as homophobia and drug use, poverty and isolation. It is not like anything Myracle has ever written before, but like her prior stories, it is well-crafted and entertaining. Shine belongs in the adult section. I think it is her best work.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Let the sun shine down!

Let me preface this review with a disclaimer: This is my first Lauren Myracle book, but if this is what I can expect from her, then I may just bring myself to reading her other works although I think I may pass on the Internet Girls series.


Shine is a remarkable read that is sure to be timeless. I am in awe of Lauren Myracle for tackling such a emotionally-charged topic and doing so with great care, respect, and brutal honesty. I don't think I have read anything quite like it. At a time where the paranormal genre runs rampant with angels and unicorns and werewolves, I strongly urge everyone to take a breather and check out Shine. It is definitely worth your while!


There are so many things to digest after reading Shine that I hardly know where to start. Cat makes for a perfect narrator who has to brace herself against the "small town = small minds" of Black Creek in order to find who had left her best friend for dead. Additionally, Cat has to reconcile with her own demons in the form of an older brother who disappointed her at the most critical moment of her life and a classmate who has wronged her in the most unforgivable way. As she digs deeper into the truth, she discovers that the small town has been infiltrated by meth - and among its users are some of her classmates.


The ending of Shine will be sure to grip you in an unexpected manner, and it will force you to take a step back and see everyone involved in a new light. Even villains can have a heart. Even villains can redeem themselves. Then again, even villains can remain villains, no matter how you try hard to save them.




Gritty, dark, disturbingly and sadly real, Shine comes at the right time in our lives where society is still hesitant about homosexuality. This is what happens, and this is what has to stop happening! I love that Shine addresses hate crime, but at the same time I am sad that it has to.


Do yourselves a favor. Go and read Shine.



Then spread the love. Stop the hate.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Compelling

Lauren Myracle's Shine starts off with a bang. The first few pages are of a newspaper article focusing on the brutal beating of Patrick, a gay high school student. After reading the "article" I couldn't help but be taken back several years to the headlines surrounding the beating of Matthew Shepard, and I immediately found myself drawn into the story.

Sixteen-year-old Cat used to be best friends with Patrick. One day, three years ago, Cat withdrew from her friends after an unfortunate run-in with one of her brothers friends. Now that Patrick is lying in a coma, Cat decides she needs to do the right thing, and feels she owes it to Patrick to find out who did this to him.

Patrick & Cat live in a very small town in the mountains of North Carolina. The people are poor, white trash, "clannish", some of them drug dealers and meth heads, and most of them quite backwards in their ways of thinking. The local sheriff doesn't want to believe that someone from the town would do this, but Cat thinks differently. During her investigation into what happened, Cat is forced to reconnect with old friends (and enemies) to find out who would do such a thing to Patrick, and most importantly, find out why.

The author paints each character with depth and precision. Having grown up in a small town, very similar to Black Creek, it wasn't hard for me to buy into the characters or the situations presented in the novel at all. This book kept me up late as I raced to finish it, and left me thinking about it long afterward. The copy I read was an advance copy from NetGalley, but I will definitely be going out to buy the hardcover version as soon as it is released. This one deserves a spot on my shelf.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

The novel every young adult should read this year.

Shine, by Lauren Myracle, portrays the residents of a small North Carolina town in the aftermath of a vicious crime. The narrator is 16-year-old Cat, who is on a mission to find her former best friend's assailant. Cat's former friend, Patrick, is openly gay and spends the duration of the novel in a coma, the apparent victim of a hate crime. The reader finds out early on that a traumatic event occurred three years prior that caused Cat to drop her friends and withdraw, but the details of the event are not divulged until later in the novel. Despite the distance between the two friends, Cat feels she owes it to Patrick to figure out who hurt him. She is not confident the police will investigate local suspects because they are judgmental of Patrick's sexuality. As Cat opens up to old and new friends while searching for Patrick's assailant, her wounds begin to heal. Shine includes some pretty heavy material: homophobia, abuse, drug addiction and prejudices. Despite the heavy subject matter, the reader is left with a sense of hope. Hope that sometimes people say things that they don't truly mean and hope that sometimes people do change for the better. Lauren Myracle is very popular for her Internet Girls series. I hope that her popularity helps get this book into the hands of young adults whose minds might be changed for the better after reading Shine.
Disclosure: I received a free e-galley of Shine from the publisher, Abrams Books.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A great story. Much more than the synopsis would suggest.

This is the first book I've read by Lauren Myracle and I enjoyed it immensely. This writer can really tell a good story. The main character is Cat, a 16 year old girl who has grown up in a small southern town that is seemingly closed off from the rest of the world. Cat has had a somewhat utopian childhood, hanging out with her best friend, Patrick, and the grandmother who raised him, Mama Sweetie. Everything Cat thinks she will ever want or need is right here in Black Creek, North Carolina in the bosom of Patrick and Mama Sweetie. But Myracle quickly juxtaposes this innocent, almost too sweet, existance with the harsh reality of smalltown life stricken with poverty and drug addiction.
On the surace this is a mystery. Patrick, who is gay, has become the victim of a hate crime. He was brutally beaten, tied to a guard rail of the gas pumps at the station where he works, and left for dead. While Patrick languishes in acomma, Cat decides to take it upon herself to find out who in her small town committed this crime. She knows the local power structure is doing whatever it takes to appear to be solving the crime as they sweep it under the rug. The thing is, Patrick is not hated, but is actually well liked in Black Creek. He is a good kid who works hard, does good in school, and even goes to church. Though it is noticed by Cat that people who seem to like Patrick do blame his being different on the attack. Often wondering what he may have done to bring this attack on himself.
As Cat gets deeper into the mystery, this becomes a story about much more than a hate crime. It turns out that Cat has not been close to or spent any time with Patrick for about two years, having closed herslf off from the rest of the world after experiencing a secret tramatic event herself. And Cat learns of the prevelence of Meth use and selling that many of her former friends have become involved with in the last couple of years. What might this, if anything, have to do with Patrick's attack?
The more she investigates the crime, and is forced to deal with what happened to her, Cat begins to heal and come back to her former self. Myracle brings some great ideas up for discussion throughout this story. Cat learns that none of us are as good on the outside as we believe we are on th inside. That you cannot compare your inside self to the outside you see of others. She also learns that usually we lash out at that in others that we dislike most within ourselves. And from Mama Sweetie she learns that when someone curses or yells insults at you, they are often trying to shake loose a bad feeling they have about themselve and pass it onto you.
While Cat does mention the media's interest in the crime a couple of times, I do think Ms. Myracle could have done more to show the affect a media frenzy would have had on the people of a small town like Black Creek. Throughout the story the setting continued to feel very isolated, which we know would not be possible in todays world. And I found the character of college student Jason Connor to be unecessary. It seemed an obvious ploy to create a possible romantic interest for Cat. He did nothing to help the story evolve, and was even left out of the climatic conclusion because he had no place in This story.
That being said, I believe this is a great story with a lot in it for the reader to chew on. I will suggest this book to anyone looking for a good, enjoyable, read that gives the reader something to take away from the experienc

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Beautiful.

READ THIS BOOK!!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

YA Version of Justified

I got this because it seemed to be an Appalachian noir, like Winter's Bone. Once I began did I realize Myracle is a YA author. The book has to go through some teen character cliches, most notably an out-of-place romance with a character whose opening act is so dispicible that he spends the rest of the novel trying to redeem himself. He never does.

What we end up with is something tamer than Winter's Bone. Young Adult Justified. Myracle tackles mature themes but can't quite commit to the darkness. That said, if you want a quick whodunit with a spunky lead and an LGBT angle, I recommend Shine.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

WOW.

Simply the best book i have ever read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Must read!!!!!

I want to start off saying i finished this book in 5 hours. This book really surprised me with all the twist and turns it absolutly keeps you wanting more and you wont want to put it down! I recommend this to anyone who wants to read a book that could easily be realistic!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Authentic and startling

Frighteningly honest with just enough Southern spice to keep it warm and endearingly fresh

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A real page turner!

I loved this book and finished it in a couple of days. It wasnt short, i just spent all free time to read it. Myracle has done it again. I love love love Shine and all her other books. I would recomend it to a young adult or older due to its cussing.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Recommend-check it out

This book is for a young reader but I am not a young reader and I really enjoyed the book. It was suspensful and when I had to put it down to do something, I could not wait to pick it up again.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Page-turner

I would recommend this book to anyone! The characters are extremely life-like and the plot is well constructed. This Lauren Myracle novel is one of my favorites. As a teen, i can relate to all the problems that occur during the story. While reading "Shine", I laughed along with the characters, felt confused with them, I was even brought to tears at some points, ( which does no happen often at all!) I am almost 100% sure if you picked up this book, you'd be hooked. The very first page immediatly pulls you into the refreshing, yet suspensful story of a young man fighting with himself and others to discover who he is and survive under the harsh eye of the other young characters in the story that don't understand the pain they are imflicting on this boy.This book is a must read; it deserves more than just five stars!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

An Amazing Read

t's as simple as this: Shine is something really special. A story that is bold, gritty, compelling, and unforgettable; a book that calls to be read no matter what your age. And with that, I don't think my review will ever give this book enough justice.

It all begins the night Patrick, Cat's best guy friend, becomes victim to a hate crime like nothing Black Creek, their small, poverty stricken town, has ever seen before. With this hate crime, Patrick is now in a bleak comma, one that he may or may never come out of. Cat's devastated beyond words, especially because of the fact that she hasn't been there for Patrick in the last few years, because after what happened to her that one fateful day, she couldn't be there for anyone even herself. But now she's going to make it up to Patrick. She's going to find out who did this vicious, horrible thing to her best friend and fix it. But is she ready to dig deep into her small town filled with secrets and dirt like she's never seen before? Is she ready to confront the person her ruined her? Is she ready to stand up for what she believes in to save her best friend, and get even more in the process? Only time will tell in this heartbreaking as well as heartwarming story of one girl's path of forgiveness and revenge in a world where she feels she will get neither.

Cat... There's so much to say about this one girl. For one, she has true spunk. She's someone I would want on my side, because even though she's had her moments in the past, she truly is fearless and brave. Better yet, I like how believable Lauren made her character be. Cat is someone who truly has seen it all, and dealt with things no one ever should, and because of it she has faced pain and heartbreak, but it has truly made her someone special, someone who truly sees the bad in a town like Black Creek, someone who can stop it, if only she can rise to the task. More importantly, Cat's friendship with Patrick,shows even more light to her character, because you get to see how far she would go to fix what has been broken for so long, to make her best friend truly love her again in a way she never thought could occur. Cat is basically one of the most well-developed characters I've read about in ages, one I truly wish I could have reached into the pages of Shine and hugged because this a girl who truly needs all the love and hope she can get.

Another compelling aspect of Shine was Black Creek. Black Creek was basically a character all on its own, one that I hated, because it's truly the pit of the world, but with Black Creek and its residents came the rawness and uniqueness this book lived on, and without this book would truly not be the same. The one thing I loved most about it was the fact that Lauren never shied away from showing the dark sides to living in a poverty stricken town.

Better yet, I loved the plot of this novel. It always had so many twists and turns and mysteries, that I never truly knew exactly what would occur; who committed the hate crime; what happened to make Cat the lonely she girl she became. It all made this book un-put-a-down-able.

Lastly, Lauren Myracle truly shines as an author in this one in a way she never has before, and because of it, I simply can't wait to have more of these kinds of reads from her since I think she could find the perfect place in gritty, realistic YA.

In all, Shine is a book I highly, highly suggest you pick up.

Grade: A+

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Shine is a Great Book for Teens

Shine is my first Lauren Myracle novel, and I was very impressed. Cat lives in Black Creek, North Carolina; a place where secrets are kept close and the town hierarchy determines how your family is treated. Cat's friend Patrick is found beaten at the local gas station with gay slurs written across his chest. Patrick is in a coma, and Cat determines to find out who attacked him, and why.

Cat's journey away from the safe, withdrawn place she had lived in for the past few years is pretty amazing. She takes her fear and turns it into anger, both at herself and at a town that is doing it's best to keep Patrick's attack unsolved. As Cat asks questions of her friends, she discovers they all have secret addictions and desires that she never saw on the outside because she thought the outside appearance of a person was the same as the inside. I think this is something we all learn as we grown into adulthood; people we thought we knew can surprise us sometimes with who they really are--and sometimes they can disappoint us, too.

I enjoyed this book very much. I think the topic is very relevant for today's world, and Cat's acceptance of her shortcomings, and her ability to see her friends for who they are, rather than what she sees on the outside, is very appealing. This book will definitely start a conversation amongst friends. A must read!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Shine Shines

Lauren Myracle has grown up since the Internet Girls series. Shine is a book that will stay with you long after you finish the last page. Cat's former best friend Patrick becomes a victim of a hate crime in their poor, Carolina mountain town. While he is in a coma, Cat investigates the crime since she knows the local sheriff will do little to solve the case. During her investigation Cat must face her own past demons as well as those of the town. Ultimately she not only discovers what happened to Patrick but she manages to find herself.

Myracle treats the subject matter with great sensitivity including sexual abuse, drug addiction and the hate crime itself. Her characters, while many of them flawed, are extremely likable and heartbreaking. Myracle maintains a high level of suspense throughout the novel that will make you race through the last pages.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

At the Come and Go Gas Station in North Carolina, Patrick is att

At the Come and Go Gas Station in North Carolina, Patrick is attacked for being homosexual. Nobody knows who did, and Patrick can’t tell them because he is in a coma. Cat, his former friend, sets out to find the attacker. She suspects Tommy, Patrick’s friend, but he denies it. She talks to many people who talked to Patrick that night. All the evidence leads to Patrick having a boyfriend. The question is, who? When the attacker starts to threaten Cat, she wants to find him/her even more. Can she? Read the book to find out what Cat will go to so she can bring justice to Patrick.
I would recommend this book to people who love thrilling mysteries. First, there is a mystery of Patrick’s attacker. Next, who is Patrick’s boyfriend? Lastly, what the attacker will do to Cat is unknown. I loved this book, and I think you will too!

Pretty Good!

This book was a little different than I thought. I thought it would be more about Patrick, her gay friend, but it got into her own story a little more which was good too. I read it really quick and didn't want to put it down.

It was okay....

It was okay...not my kind of book really. But good enough for me to read and finish!
There is elements that i didn't like and that i did.